COLOR issues

SU
Posted By
Seattle_User
Nov 25, 2008
Views
314
Replies
9
Status
Closed
Not sure this question can adequately be addressed in a forum, but here goes: I’m working on Windows XP with Photoshop CS3. I’ve got a 3D Studio Max file that has been rendered and exported as any of the following formats: JPG, TIF, PNG, BMP, etc. These files are exported without a profile (untagged).

When we open them in Photoshop, we make color adjustments and print them to a Canon 5180 printer and the color is MUCH muddier and warm than onscreen (whether we leave it untagged or assign and/or convert to Adobe RGB 1998). Granted, the monitors are not calibrated, but the image appears generally the same on a number of (uncalibrated) monitors: cool and crisp. Aside from monitor calibration, could there be anything else affecting color between the computer and printer? We’ve tried letting the printer manage colors and Photoshop manage colors, but the output is identical in both cases.
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X
xrdbear
Nov 26, 2008
I hate to say it but I think the only solution is to create a fully colour managed system. You do need to profile your monitor and you do need to use print profiles created for your printer/paper/ink combination. There is no easy way round this, any other way is hit and miss.

Brian
F
Freeagent
Nov 26, 2008
As above. Most monitors out of the box are way too bright and have a considerable blue cast. That’s what you’re seeing.
M
Mylenium
Nov 26, 2008
I would not necessarily blame the monitors, though. Some modern TFTs are perfectly "neutral" out of the box and only require minor adjustments or calibration, if at all. Some print drivers, however, will oversaturate colors, change color component weighting/ density or add additional ink where it shouldn’t be…. This is regardless of the CM settings in most cases and usually deeply buried in some advanced settings or even a part of the printer’s own menu settings, so look into that. Otherwise, yes, calibration is always a good thing.

Mylenium
GU
Glenn_UK
Nov 26, 2008
As the others rightly say, the only way round this is color management – i.e letting each of your devices know what the other actually intends when it says rgb this or that.

Short of committing to full-blown custom profiling, you might help your situation by looking to find any ‘canned’ printer profiles you could use? Paper (and ink) suppliers often provide for download free generic profiles made to match a particular paper.
Place it in your Windows Color folder: C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color where Photoshop knows to find it.

Such a profile should, if used correctly with Photoshop’s Print>Color Management options, provide at least an improved output.

Not familiar myself with Canon’s dialogue, but the usual procedure would be something like: first, to assign a color-space profile to your image (srgb or argb, say) – this does not change but defines the rgb values; then (in Photoshop CS3’s printer dialogue) choose ‘Photoshop manages color’ and set Printer Profile to the one you downloaded. Very important, as the alert there reminds you, to disable all color management handling in your printer’s dialogue (only one or the the other must be handling the conversion from input profile to output profile).
Rendering intent is a variable dependent on specific cases: either Perceptual or RelCol should generally suffice here (personally I go with RelCol as standard). BlackPoint Comp should generally be checked.

This will get your image data more accurately passed to the printer. Whether or not it matches what you see on screen is, of course, where display profiling comes in. Without that, we really are guessing and hoping; but at least by using a source (color space) profile and printer profile the actual transfer of colours should be reasonably true…

Might be good to look for further suggestions in the Color Management forum here <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.eea5b31>…

Good luck,
Glenn
SU
Seattle_User
Nov 26, 2008
Thanks all for the input. Glenn, I had run through all of your suggestions previously with no luck – pretty much the same output. The two additional odd factors I forgot to mention are:

1) These prints are especially muddy/warm on laserjet color printers, but they look much closer to reality when printed on inkjet printers.

2) Files that did not originate from 3D applications print fine to the laserjet printers out of Photoshop.

So, is it possible that Photoshop treats images exported from 3D applications differently than others?
JM
J_Maloney
Nov 26, 2008
Have you tried converting to SWOP instead of Canon’s profile?
SU
Seattle_User
Dec 2, 2008
Yeah, and that makes no difference either. Seems that the inkjets treat these images nicer than the laserjets for some reason.
JM
J_Maloney
Dec 2, 2008
I really can’t imagine you’d get the same output from aRGB, Canon profile, and SWOP. Maybe a setting on your printer? Try finding out how to restore factory defaults. You could go here <http://www.gballard.net/psd/srgbforwww.html#download> to download troubleshooting files.
SU
Seattle_User
Dec 4, 2008
I’ve been slammed at work and haven’t had a chance to do anything with the link, but will try to get to that and test print the target to both printers (I think we use the same target here, as well).

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